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Fuzzy logic that determines sky conditions as a key component of a smart irrigation system

Abstract:

The economic and environmental need of using the right amount of water for irrigation has led to the development of different technological systems, such as simple automatic solutions that activate the irrigation process at well-defined times. The main disadvantage of those systems is that they do not consider the actual amounts of water needed by the crops nor the meteorological variables that influence their development. An alternative to the use of automatic systems is the use of smart irrigation systems that focus on the actual dosage of water needed by the crops. In the development of this project, the design and implementation of a smart irrigation system are carried out through the sensing of soil moisture and meteorological variables. That information is used to implement a smart control scheme, which manages the flow of water for irrigation. One of the novel ideas in this work is the realization of a fuzzy logic system that determines the prevailing sky conditions in the area, which obtained an accuracy of 76.92%. The amount of water needed for each crop can be determined by an agronomic design, and a comparison of the amount of water required by the smart irrigation system and gravity irrigation was performed, obtaining estimated savings of 68%. The obtained results serve as a proof of concept for a novel system that could have a beneficial social and environmental impact in agriculture.